When It Isn't Working, Take A Step To The Right
by Molly-Ann Leikin

Last week, I wanted to see "Carrington", an Emma Thompson movie I missed in the theatre but heard was available on video. I called my favorite video rental place to reserve it, but every copy was checked out. However, they were happy to take my name, and should the tape return that day, they'd hold it for me. Pretty nice, right?

I was home with the flu, cranky, fevered, and it was a whole week until the French Open started. I'd rescheduled all my clients so they wouldn't have to deal with Molly's Infirmary, and spent the day calling the video store every twenty-eight minutes, hoping someone had returned the tape I wanted. But no - it still wasn't there.

Fine. I had some serious chicken soup, watched "Jeopardy", got the final answer correct and took it as a sign that I'd have a better day all round tomorrow. At ten the next morning, I called the video store again, and while they were sorry to tell me that someone had just checked out the tape, they'd be happy to put my name on the hold list, so as soon as it came in, they'd keep the tape for me. What, I asked sneezing rather dramatically, had happened to the hold I placed yesterday? "Oh, that was Dave," a hostile voice said, "and he's not here today." Swell. I coughed for nine minutes and eight seconds, and told the video Nazi this could well be my last experience as a living being, let alone the last video I ever see. Didn't that mean anything? Not really.

This went on for four days. Nazi was replaced by Ernesto Hortense, who was followed by Sigfus, who was replaced by Dog. My flu had flown, and I was forced to read during my recovery, never seeing "Carrington". On day five, finally able to stand without wobbling, and risking a relapse, wearing pink, fuzzy slippers, I drove over to the video store, thinking a personal appearance, a cash bribe, plus some fresh, hot, homemade chocolate chip cookies might work. They didn't.

On my way home, as I scrolled through the Rolodex in my mind to see who I knew who wanted to make some extra money and would camp out at the entrance to this video emporium, I stopped at another video store, one I never used, and discovered that yes, they did have "Carrington", just returned by someone else in fuzzy slippers, in fact, although they were blue. I kissed the alternative video store man, and roared home to see Emma Thompson suffer.

I was so focused on renting a video tape the way I had always done it, the way that had always worked for me before, that I completely lost sight of alternatives. It would seem so obvious to me listening to this story now to try another video store, especially since I live in a city where there's at least one in every block, but I was stuck doing this, this way.

It can happen to anyone, especially when you're writing. If you need a rhyme for "orange", it's not atypical to dent cement pounding your head against the wall trying to find the rhyme. In the heat of an obsessive moment, few of the writers I know would ever think to rewrite a line with a different rhyme word, one that has more possibilities, until someone else suggests it.

The same mental impasse often occurs in the marketing process, too. We get so obsessed with getting Executive Uno on the phone that we forget there are other people at other music publishing and record companies who will be equally rude and advantageous for us to speak to and meet with. We call and call Executive Uno until it's embarrassing, until we risk institutionalization if we call that same person again.

When I get to this point, I've taught myself to lie down on the floor, with the phones off the hook, and meditate for fifteen minutes. That clears the playing field in my mind, so I can start clean, perhaps from a different perspective.

If I don't have a plan B after meditating, I go out for a brisk half hour walk. And if that doesn't work, I go to my health club, sit in the jacuzzi, then the steam room, and take a long delicious shower, trying not to think about my immediate problem. The change of venue is a good distraction, and all that water, coming at me in different forms, is very soothing. But If I'm still idea-free when I leave the health club, I go home, haul out my coloring book, and force myself to color outside the lines. And some time within the next few hours or days, another course of action inevitably occurs to me.

Moving your attention off the task at hand and taking one step to the right will give you a new point of view on writing your song and marketing it. Try it. And let me know how you do.

By the way, as much as I admire Emma Thompson's work, I hated the end of "Carrington". Too devastating. Sorry, Emma. But it might console you to know I'm signed up for "Sense and Sensibility", and should have a shorter wait for this one. Dog, it seems, loves my cookies.

© 2000 Molly-Ann Leikin

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