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March 13, 2012 / 44 Comments

25 Things You Should Know About Creativity

1. Let’s Just Get This Out Of The Way Now

As is my way, I’m going to use this list to say lots of hard-nosed stompy-footed scowly-faced things about creativity — blah blah blah pragmatism! Bippity-boppity-boo work work work! So, let me just say this upfront: creativity is fantastic. It’s a necessity not just for us wifty creative types but for all people everywhere — parents, astronauts, custodians, detectives, cowboys, Navy SEALs, harbor seals, custodial astro-cowboy detectives, and so on. Creativity is how new things are created. How old problems are solved. Creativity is fire, yes, but fire you use, fire you harness — it must not burn uncontrollably but be the match-flame that lights the fuse. Creativity is the fire we stole from the gods.

2. Key Word: Create

The key component of the word “creativity” is “create.” Meaning, to make something. It’s why I like the word creativity better than imagination — the former suggests the impetus for action while the latter suggests that everything is sealed away in the Sid and Marty Krofft hallucinogenic dream-house that is your mind (“OMG TALKING BUTTPLUG”). Imagination demands unreality; creativity demands reality.

3. “Oh. How Creative.”

The word “creative” inspires hasty judgment. A child who learns to fish around his diaper for fecal material which he then promptly paints on the wall gets labeled as “creative,” but it’s said with the faintest sneer and an imagined eye-roll. “Oh. Look. A poopy giraffe. How creative.” The way people say it, it sounds like a word reserved for mental patients and serial killers. “Oh. Look. A refrigerator full of eyeless human skulls. How creative.” Anybody in a creative industry is used to this. You tell someone what you do — writer, artist, musician — and they get that same poopy-giraffe head-collection look in their eyes, “Oh. Look. A writer. How creative.” Hey, fuck those people. Fuck ’em because they don’t grok the fact that creativity is what makes this whole human race not just function, but evolve.

4. Creativity Is Worthless Without Action

You can be as creative as you want, but unless you light a fire under your ass and shock-prod your brain-squirrels into powering the endeavor at hand, what’s the fucking point? Creativity demands action, direction, ambition. You tell me, “I want to write a novel about the persecution of magical ponies,” and then you sit there staring all slack-jawed, then the best you’ve done is committed an act of mental masturbation. Piss on inertia. Jump in. Get your hands dirty. Make something or shut up about it.

5. Creativity Is Dead Without Skill

Sucks, but there it is. “I want to write a novel about the persecution of magical ponies” is only going to be a functional expression of creativity if you have some measure of skill to go along with it — and yet, the irony is, you only gain a measure of skill by trying to do the thing you probably can’t do. Creativity is an eager beast, snorting and growling and ready to bust out of the stable, even if the beast is unready. You can’t walk until you can walk, but you still have to try to walk — even if that means falling on your face and shitting your britches in public. Mistakes must be made. Skill must be built. Creativity always runs ahead of your ability to perform the desired tasks, but hey, fuck it, that’s how we learn.

6. Early Frustration Indicative Of Imbalance

High creativity! Low skill. Sad trombone. Weepy panda. Creative-types often find themselves woefully frustrated by the process at hand. We feel like we’re beating our head against the wall, the ceiling, the floor. We experience that thing some might call “writer’s block,” or “painter’s obstacle,” or, uhhh, “flutist’s colonic obstruction.” Such frustration often grows out of that gulf between your rampant creativity and your nascent ability. You just have to push through the pain. Birth ain’t easy, people. It’s work. You’re going to turn your netherparts into microwaved bologna. It’s all part of the process. (See Ira Glass’ take on this problem here. Er, the problem of frustration, not of exploded birth canals.)

7. I Want To Rabbit-Punch The Term “Creative Writing” In The Kidneys

All writing is creative. Not just novels. Not just screenplays or games or the poetry you compose in your attic for all the little rats and roaches to read. All writing is creative. *bangs the gavel*

8. The Monkey With The Stick

The connotation of creativity is some goggle-eyed artist creating worlds with the tickling tips of his fingers — “Unicorns! Happy trees! Doodlebugs and space freighters!” — but that’s not what creativity is about at its core. Creativity is about problem solving. The monkey wants the ants in the hill and doesn’t know how to get them, so he breaks off a nearby stick and jams it in the anthill. Ten seconds later: delicious insect popsicle. Problems are an excellent motivator. Creativity needn’t trigger out of nowhere; it often activates when one is presented with a problem that needs an unexpected solution. Fiction requires this in spades: the author must solve problems he has created within the storyworld. Mmm. Delicious metanarrative conflictsicle.

9. The Frankenstein Monster Effect

The true power of creativity is gathering unlike things and glomming them together so that they function as one. For a storyteller, individual components needn’t be particularly original. The art is in the arrangement.

10. NF Over F, MFers

My bookshelves — comprising two full walls of my office — feature about 75% non-fiction, 25% fiction. Fiction does not generally inspire functional creativity. Reading fiction helps you to write fiction, yes, but over time you may find more creative value in gently shuffling your reading habits toward absorbing more non-fiction. Read broadly, widely, weirdly. Reading lots of non-fiction will expose you to a wide variety of those aforementioned “unlike things” and you’ll find this inspires more compelling arrangements than reading only fiction. A diet of fiction is regurgitory: it’s a Two Girls, One Cup version of the creative process. “I’ll poop in your mouth. Now you poop in my mouth.” Read a book about insects. Then read an article about the Hadron Collider. Then read about Shanghai in the 1930s. Your mind will find weird, glorious ways to cram these gears together in order to form a new machine.

11. Motes Of Dust To Mammoth Star Clusters

Creativity lives on the page at all levels, micro to macro. From word choice to worldbuilding, from sentence construction to story arcs. But the creative process must still be subject to organization. Creativity is not raw, unrefined whimsy. You don’t just fountain golden streams of infinite possibility from all your gurgling orifices. It has to work together. Shit has to make sense. But even then creativity lives in the margins and gaps: when something doesn’t make sense, creative problem solving will help Make It So.

12. Tickling Your Temporal Lobes

You can stimulate creativity. No, I don’t know how you do it. It’s as personal as What Makes You Laugh or What Gets You Off. Is it listening to music? Reading poetry? Going to a bar and drinking with your buddies and talking about whatever barmy goofy fucking shit comes into your fool heads? Do you draw mind-maps or outlines or write dream journals or light up your perineum with a quick blast from a stun-gun (BZZT)? Only way to know is to try anything and everything. Now take off your pants. (BZZT.)

13. The Zero Mind

Some rare flowers bloom at night, and sometimes creativity blooms in a vacuum of stimulation rather than as a result of it. If we assume that creativity is a muscle (it’s not, shut up, just pretend), then tensing it all the time is not productive. Sometimes it must relax. Sometimes it must be allowed to rest. Mow the lawn. Take a shower. Go for a walk. Get a massage. You can even set your brain like a slow-cooker before you go to sleep. In the morning? HARVEST ALL THE DELICIOUS IDEA CHILI. *nom nom nom*

14. You Catch More Bunnies With Tractor Beams Than With Giant Comical Wooden Mallets That Pound Them Into Bunny Fritters

You can coax creativity — but trust me when I say, you can’t force it. You can’t just grit your teeth and bug your eyes out and eject a litter of squalling idea-babies. NGGH POP. Doesn’t happen. You ever try to remember a name or word you can’t quite conjure? Or have sex when you’re totally not in the mood? Thinking extra hard about it and forcing it just doesn’t work. It usually just leads to frustration. It might mean your project is not yet ready. It may need time or (as above) stimulation. …and yes, “Bunny Fritters” is the pseudonym under which I write all my sexy romance novels.

15. Johnny Five Is Alive, And Also, Needs Input

Sometimes you need to jack new shit into your brain. You need to accept new Experience Modules as part of your human motherfucking program. Creativity may occur when you go out and try new things. Have new experiences. Eat foods you’ve never tried. Take a trip. Fuck somebody new (er, not if you’re in a committed loving relationship). Fly down a zip-line. HUNT AND KILL YOUR FELLOW MAN WHILE TRIPPING ON ACID. I mean, whut? Nothing. Point is, sometimes you need new input. You’d be amazed at how fresh experiences provide a defibrillator jolt to your creativity muscle. Which no, is not a euphemism for your wangle rod. And yes, “wangle rod” is a euphemism for penis. Shut up. I hate you so bad right now.

16. Prison Break From Your Comfort Zone

To build on that following point, you sometimes need to Hulk out, tear your purple shorts asunder, and bust free of the prison you’ve built out of your own routine and habits. It’s not just about new experiences but about new ways to work. Take risks. Experiment with a new style of writing. Sometimes creativity gets blocked behind an ice cube dam in your drinking glass and you need to rattle the cup and fill your mouth with the sweet milky fluid of… I’m suddenly uncomfortable. IN THE PANTS. Pow! Zing! Elbow nudge, elbow nudge! Ahem. Point is: sometimes you need to shake that shit up. Write in a different POV. Or tense. Or write shorter. Or longer. Or in a different genre. Fuck what people expect of you. The only thing they should expect is your best. Otherwise? Flail those Kermit arms and go crazy.

17. Explore Your Inner Art Teacher

Let your mind don the colorful frock! Drape a necklace made of whole conch shells around your neck! Bespectacle yourself in tortoise-shell spectacles! Okay, I mock the art teachers of the world, but seriously, to build again on the following points, sometimes it’s not just about finding new ways to write — it’s about finding new ways to create. I’m a sucker for photography and cooking. You might be into oil paints and the mandolin. That guy over there might be over macrame and the art of undetectable poisons. You’d be amazed at how a new artistic pursuit will widen your view and allow new creative synapses to fire.

18. The Muse: Substantial As A Ghost

The Muse is not real. Relying on the Muse is like leaning on a crutch made of playing cards. You are your own Muse. Inspiration comes from within, not from without. Dig deep into that pile of squirming viscera. Reach high into your gray matter. Find the pearl tucked inside your swiftly-beating heart. Stop looking elsewhere for that creative spark. You command it. It doesn’t command you.

19. You Cannot Damage Your Creativity

Some folks treat their creativity like it’s a baby mouse with a low fetal heart rate; someone sneezes in the next room and so dies the tiny beast. You cannot damage your creativity. It is not an expendable resource. Sometimes you hear people say that outlining diminishes their creativity. Or that if they write every day it somehow pees in the mouth of their peacock magic. If your creativity is so frail a thing, or if it demands highly specific circumstances to emerge like it’s some kind of precious lycanthrope, then you’re fucked. The professional life of a creative-type must stand up to buffeting winds and scorching temperatures.

20. I Smell Ozone And Can’t Feel My Legs

Your creativity isn’t broken and it isn’t “gone” — but push too hard and too fast and you’ll find that your interior intellectual space feels like it’s been rubbed raw with a rusted rasp. Ease off the stick, meth-monkey. Give yourself permission to suck. Take a break — but not too long of one.

21. The Left-Brain / Right-Brain MMA Cage Fight

“I’m right-brained,” said the wispy top-hat wearing Willy Wonka wannabe as he smeared paint on his own pallid buttocks. “That means I’m creative.” Pfft. Pssh. Piffle! The right-brain is not the keeper of creativity. Right-brain and left-brain work in tandem. Language is left-brained. Craft is left-brained. Plot logic is left-brained. The right-brain is the galloping stallion; the left-brain reins in the horse.

22. These Aren’t One-Handed Push-Ups

Creativity can be cultivated with the help of others. We aren’t alone. Bounce ideas. Share a meal. The act of creation need not begin, continue, or culminate in isolation. Fair warning: you may need to wear pants.

23. No One Tool, Method, Or Strategy

There exists no one shining path to access and grow your creativity. We’re not robots. I mean, I’m not. You might be, and I suppose your titanium chest-plate and telescoping eye-stalks should’ve given that away. But whatever. Most of us can’t just program our creativity to power on and off like a fucking lamp. It is what it is. We’re all different. We all have different tricks to allow us to pop our intellectual cookies.

24. Transformation Through Destruction

Shiva, god of destruction, is also a god of creation — that’s because transformation happens through annihilation. You may need to destroy your current manuscript. Or your excuses. Or your bad habits. Or your ego. Or the wretched soul-shackles we call “pants.” Sometimes creation is first about obliteration.

25. Sometimes, It Just Won’t Be There

Once in a while you’ll reach for your creativity and all you’ll find are empty shelves — but creative types do not always have the luxury of sitting on our hands until creativity decides to show its face. Doubly true when deadlines (and by proxy, money) is on the line. What do you do? You do. Meaning, you create anyway. You say fuck it and make shit anyway. If the pantry is empty you create food from whatever is near to hand: linoleum, chairs, guinea pigs, your children. You’d be amazed at how often you think you’ve got nothing left in the tanks and it turns out you hadn’t yet shined light in all the darkest corners. Confront the blank page. Being generative creates creativity. DID I BLOW YOUR MIND? *asplode*

March 12, 2012 / 5 Comments

Oooh! Me! Me! Call On Me!

Another “Where’s Wendig?” update comin’ atchoo.

• I spoke with Kelly Carlin (daughter of, yes, the nation’s greatest comedian) at her Smodcast show, Waking From The American Dream. I talk about writing and Blackbirds and hallucinogens and vaginas and all kinds of crazy stuff. Give a listen here.

• Looks like I’ll be rocking a Blackbirds launch party on April 24th (Tues) at 7:30pm at Mysterious Galaxy in Redondo Beach (Los Angeles). Where my LA peeps at? Who’s out on the West Coast? Hope you’ll swing by! I’ll be in the City of Angels for just shy of a week, I think.

• I talk a bit about how having a kid changes a writer’s life in unexpected ways over at The Qwillery. Go there, and leave a comment — you then get a chance at winning a paperback copy of Blackbirds!

• “Chuck Wendig has a reputation for being insightful, foul mouthed and as American as long dusty roads, apple pie and presidential assassinations, so it comes as no surprise that his latest novel Blackbirds is clever, vile and firmly set in the heartlands of the USA.” Blackbirds nets an 8/10 at Starburst Magazine!

• “…in the coming months you’ll be seeing a lot of what I’d like to call ‘sandpaper reviews’ of this book. There will be a metric ton of words like gritty, abrasive, rough, harsh, and edgy. Yes, this book would make a sailor blush. Yes, horrible, terrible, awful, no good, very bad stuff happens to almost everyone. And yes, you’ll be a little shocked if you’re like seventeen year old me. But honestly, by the time I was twenty pages into this book I wouldn’t have put it down for $50. By the time I was 80% of the way through, I wouldn’t have taken $250. Understand, I’m not a rich man, and $250 would do a lot for me. But I HAD to know what would happen to Miriam.” My Awful Reviews gives a glowing high-five to Blackbirds! *happy dance*

• “Reading Blackbirds feels a little like you’re riding a rollercoaster; after tipping over that first crest you’re pulled forward with a momentum that is paralyzing and a force that is unstoppable.” Fantasy Fiction gives the book five stars! *spins around violently until throwing up with sheer dizzying joy*

• “Read this book. Trust me. Blackbirds takes you for a late night cruise down a dark and twisted road without the benefit of headlights. Something bad is just around the bend. You can feel it coming and there’s not a damned thing you can do to stop it.” Woo! Another rave review, this one from Sean Cummings (Poltergeeks). *guzzles whiskey and punches a stuffed pheasant*

• I chat with Mighty Matt Forbeck over at his website: we talk Kickstarter and Angry Robot and all kinds of good stuff. He’s a great writer in his own right (do read Carpathia).

• Speaking of Kickstarter! Bait Dog‘s Kickstarter event has only a week left! And we are (at the time of this blog writing) at $4730, which means we are a) completely funded for the first novel and b) underfunded by $1270 to unlock the next novel. Spread the word! If you’ve pledged: thank you! If you’ve shared this with others: thank you! If you gave me a cookie: thank you!

• And Smallsmall Thing, a documentary about the tribulations of a young Liberian girl (on which I did some script work) — has crossed the halfway mark at Kickstarter! Very excited to see this come to light.

• Finally: OH HELLO DINOCALYSPE NOW COVER. *strokes you lovingly*

March 9, 2012 / 80 Comments

Mac Zealots! Quickly! To Me! To Me!

So, I asked a while back about Macs.

I bought a Mac Mini.

I used that Mac Mini as a home theater component. It worked pretty well like that.

Then, yesterday, my PC pooped the bed and fell down the stairs and ate a gun.

I think it’s the video card — but could be anything. I used to know my way around the guts of a computer but it’s been a handful of years now since I really paid attention to that sort of thing.

Anywho — that’s not the point. Point is, at present, I am now a brand new bonafide Mac user! And it’s been fairly nice so far. This little keyboard lets me fly on it. I love the magic trackpad thing — the gestures are really sweet in terms of letting me zip through screens and open the dashboard and whatever.

Just the same, I’m all a bit lost.

So, I once more turn to you:

What do I need? What do I need to know? What are essential apps?

Further, I’m going to need to do some word processing on this bad-boy real soon, so I’ll need to know about that, too. What’re my best options? I want — nay, need — a word processor that will let me read and utilize Word’s TRACK CHANGES option, so does that mean I’m stuck with the Mac version of Word? Talk to me about Scrivener, too, and how well it talks to Word and… y’know, all that crizzap.

Help a brother out, Mac people.

And if anybody comes in here making a ding at PCs or Macs, I will punt your perineum through your brain pan. This is not the time or the place to take bullshit sides in a made-up tribal tech war. Stuff it.

Thanks!

March 9, 2012 / 44 Comments

Flash Fiction Challenge: “I’ve Chosen Your Words”

Last week’s challenge — Song Shuffle! — is alive and absorbing your gaze.

Forgive the lateness of this — but yesterday, my PC took a shit-bath and now I’ve gone and pulled the Mac Mini from off the television and am using that as my current ‘puter.

Here’s the challenge:

This past week, I talked about word choice, so it seems only fitting I choose words for you.

I have, in fact, chosen 20 words.

You must choose 10 of these words and use them throughout your ~1000 word flash fiction story.

Might be tricky, but hey, that’s why this is a challenge and not, say, me tickling your privates with a feather.

The ten words:

Beast, brooch, cape, dinosaur, dove, fever, finger, flea, gate, insult, justice, mattress, moth, paradise, research, scream, seed, sparrow, tornado, university.

You’ve got a week. Friday, 15th, by noon EST.

Post your stories online (not here in the comments, please) and link back here.

Now go and gnaw on the words I have chosen.

March 8, 2012 / 5 Comments

Paul Elwork: The Terribleminds Interview

So, here’s Paul Elwork. He’s someone I don’t really know but, when I pinged for interviews, there he was. And I thought, okay, let’s take a look at his book and — well, from that point forward, I knew it was a good idea to get him here. Plus, he’s a Pennsylvania citizen, and that means he gets special privilege. And a hat made of cheesesteaks. Anyway. The paperback edition of his novel, The Girl Who Would Speak for the Dead, is available now. Visit his website at: www.paulelwork.com. And check him on the Twitters (@paulelwork).

This is a blog about writing and storytelling. So, tell us a story. As short or long as you care to make it. As true or false as you see it.

There once was a man from Nantucket. Nice guy, but a little self-indulgent.

Why do you tell stories?

Because it’s what my inefficient brain does best. And because I feel most myself when doing it, as opposed to doubting myself, making excuses about why I should be doing something else, etc.

Give the audience one piece of writing or storytelling advice:

Write as often as you can. Form that habit—fit it in wherever possible—just write and write. I’m a really big offender on this point, in that I often “can’t” write unless the conditions are ideal, and it has cost me untold hours of mistakes and discovery and great stuff I couldn’t have imagined I had in me. I have to teach myself this lesson over and over again, for some reason. Damn inefficient brain.

You live near Philly, yeah? What’s your favorite—and least-favorite—thing about the city?

I think the noise and bustle of the city—of any city—are both my favorite and least favorite things, depending on my mood. That’s why it’s great to live so close on the outskirts, only a short drive even from downtown Philly. But I can turn around and hurry back to where it feels like I’m living in the woods out in the hinterlands.

What’s great about being a writer, and conversely, what sucks about it?

The best thing is probably the excitement of a new idea, one you know has legs. It’s like Friday evening driving home from work—full of possibility. That sense of renewed hope, as if all your battered wishes could be fulfilled with this shining thing, this idea. What sucks is the inverse; the feeling that you’ll never have a good idea again, and that it may as well have been someone else who had the past ideas. And the waiting. All of the waiting inherent to the writing life sucks.

The Girl Who Would Speak for the Dead—where did that book come from? What’s the originating point for you?

The idea for the book came from two places: the true story of the Fox sisters, the claimed spirit mediums who started the Spiritualist movement in the nineteenth century, and a historic riverside estate at the edge of Philadelphia, Glen Foerd on the Delaware. I borrowed heavily from Glen Foerd as the setting—taking the garden playhouse pretty much straight from the estate—and in using the germ of the Fox sisters’ story, I recast it, moved it in time, and fictionalized everything.

What does this book say about death?

The book definitely proceeds from the idea of death as an end. The story concerns itself with how the living deal with each other and those they’ve lost in the face of mortality, and the roles of grief and belief in doing so. It’s also about secrets, or maybe more precisely, about the secret lives people lead.

Favorite word? And then, the follow up: Favorite curse word?

“Ridiculous” seems to be my favorite word. Over the years I’ve been made fun of for using it a lot. My favorite curse word is easily “motherfucker.” Those consonants kick.

Favorite alcoholic beverage? (If cocktail: provide recipe. If you don’t drink alcohol, fine, fine, a non-alcoholic beverage will do.)

I love India Pale Ales. I love beer in general—and wine and the occasional single-malt Scotch or vodka martini—but if we’re talking about favorites, I have to say a nicely textured IPA. There are so many great ones, but I’ll throw Stone Brewing’s Arrogant Bastard Ale on top of the pile. Make of that what you will.

You don’t get away with just one IPA recommendation. Recommend three more good IPAs folks should try.

Ah, IPAs—so many good ones. Dogfish Head’s 90-Minute IPA (sometimes called an imperial IPA) clocks in at 9% ABV and is absolutely fantastic. Each one packs a little wallop, though, so careful about knocking them back. Victory Brewing’s HopDevil IPA is very rich and complex—definitely one to try if you like such things. I also have to mention Yards Brewing’s IPA, now an old favorite of mine. And all of this beer talk is making me thirsty…

Recommend a book, comic book, film, or game: something with great story. Go!

I’m going to sound like your middle-school English teacher, but I recommend Great Expectations. The pure storytelling of Dickens’s novels still astounds me, and this one has got to be my favorite. If this book seems like kid stuff in your mind (and boring kid stuff, at that), consider this passage: “And then I looked at the stars, and considered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the glittering multitude.” Oh man, I really am like your middle-school English teacher.

What skills do you bring to help the humans win the inevitable zombie war?

I’ve never fired a gun, I’m not very handy, and I don’t have even a Cub Scout’s wilderness skills. Really hoping they’ll need someone delivering smartass asides amid the horror and gore.

You’ve committed crimes against humanity. They caught you. You get one last meal.

Salmon stuffed with crab and covered in Béarnaise sauce. That would be a high note at the end of a murderous career.

What’s next for you as a storyteller? What does the future hold?

My sons have asked me a number of times if I’ll ever write a book for kids—especially my older son, who’s eight. I love so many children’s books, and it is a dream of mine to write one. So right now I’m doing that—writing a creepy book for my sons and for the kid that was (is) me. We’ll see how it goes.

You’re writing a kids’ book? What’s the trick to storytelling for children?

I think the literary/storytelling values are pretty much the same. It’s still about Faulkner’s line regarding the “human heart in conflict with itself” for me. You want to infuse the work with your best conception of truth in a thousand ways, even while providing excitement and adventure, even if supernatural elements are at play (as they are in the book I’m writing). If you’re writing for 10–12 year olds, say, you don’t want to write too far over their heads. I’ve found that this makes me strive even harder to say things simply, which I can’t help but see as a good thing. My prose is sort of stripped down, anyway, so I don’t find this to be too confining stylistically.

On the other hand, maybe the bigger danger is dumbing the work down too much because you think kids can’t handle it. Obviously it makes you think differently about adult issues in whatever you’re writing—and any violence gets special handling, as well—but it can’t be condescending. The classics for children we keep returning to—in books, movies, anything—don’t present themselves as if for little imbeciles. Kids have complex emotional lives, too. They share the strange compulsion of adults to lose ourselves in narrative even while grappling with the complicated and confusing elements of our lives within these narratives, however they are staged or play out. And it seems to me, if we’re not striving to achieve both effects—in any kind of fiction writing—then why bother?

March 7, 2012 / 18 Comments

Why You Should Be Watching “Awake”

I had little interest in watching Awake on NBC.

I was like… ennh. Okay. Another cop show. This time — with a twist! He’s split between two realities! Or something! I don’t care! I want ice cream and tacos! Fuck yeah! Woo!

Further, I was still a little butt-chapped by NBC’s decision to shelve Community.

Except, then they unshelved Community. Earning a little good will.

Then they started showing promos for Awake.

Jason Isaacs as a detective who loses his wife and/or his son in a car accident — every night he goes to sleep and wakes up in a reality where one or the other survived. But it wasn’t the premise that sold me. The promos revealed a thoughtful, mature show that possessed a gimmick but did not rely upon it.

I knew something was up when my wife saw the promo, said, “Oh, that looks good.”

Suddenly, my interest was piqued.

And last night, I finally got around to watching the DVR’ed pilot episode.

You need to be watching this show.

A Show Written By Writers

That sounds strange, I know. “Chuck, aren’t all TV shows written by writers, you smeg-mouthed dope-donkey?” First: how rude. Second: technically, yes, writers write all shows. But that doesn’t mean they’re the ones in control. Or that what they wrote ends up on the screen. Hollywood offers an ecosystem whereby a great many individuals with absolutely zero sense of good storytelling get to call the shots.

This is not that show.

The show steps out of the gate and in the dialogue makes clear that it’s paying attention to the laws of good storytelling. The one shrink in the one reality tells Michael Britten (Isaacs) to start at the beginning. But the main character says “No, let’s start right now.” Meaning, we’re not going to get a dumptruck of back-chatter and exposition dumped on our heads. We’re going to move through the story where it is now, and get details when we need them — and never before.

Sharp dialogue, strong plotting, damaged characters? This is a writer’s show. (And here my bias as a writer is made clear: any show with quality components and strong story is, to me, a writer’s show.)

The Lost Vibe

I remember watching the first episode of Lost and finding myself more and more transfixed — and pleasantly bewildered — by what was going on. Up until that point where Charlie utters that famous line: “Guys… where are we?” Then, DOOSH: the Lost logo hit and there I was left blinking and wondering just how a show this sublime snuck past the bouncers in TV-Land. (How Lost ended up is a discussion for another time.)

When I watched Awake, I got the same vibe — the same freaky frequency drew me closer. All these little twists and uncertainties and slow reveals. I saw there thinking, “What is happening? What’s really going on?”

They took a very simple concept — plane crash on an island, cop pinballs between two realities (one of which may be a dream) — and gave it to us with subtlety and grace. With a focus on character and story above the contrivance of plot or the cleverness of the logline and yet while still promising that what you’re seeing is (as the therapist played by B.D. Wong puts it) just the tip of an iceberg.

Could it go off the rails?

Sure. Any show could.

But I like having a show so firmly on the rails first, and this is very much that.

Jason Isaacs

Isaacs is, to me, the devil. He plays bad very well. It’s not just Malfoy. It’s Admiral Zhao, or the guy from The Patriot. Isaacs is a chilly, scary dude. So to have him come out of the gate with this protagonist — who feels equally chilly here but yet contains a core of warmth and soul — who you care about so strongly from the get-go, well, it’s a win for me.

Rare To Find A Show That Demands Patience

I’ve no idea if the show will reward that patience — I’m not a haruspex, tearing the intestinal wire from forth my television to examine it for glimpses of the future — but I do know that the show is demanding my patience, which to me is a feature and not a bug. I like a show that wants me to sit down and go for the ride. I don’t want a story to pander to me, to shake its moneymaker in a desperate grab to keep my attention between commercial breaks. This is a show that’s subtle, that’s got nuance, that is asking me to chill the fuck out while it tells me the story it needs to tell.

Again, will it reward? No idea.

But if the pilot is any indication, we’re at least in for an earnest attempt.

You can catch up on the pilot (if it’s still live at the time of this linking) here.

And the show airs tomorrow night (Thurs) at 10pm. Check it.