How to Eat an Elephant

If I gained nothing else from all my years at LSI, at least I learned how to eat an elephant. I learned this way back when I was on second shift, before my involuntary transfer to first shift, when all of the screening staff was called into a meeting hosted by Margaret, one of the engineers. At the time, things weren't going so hot and there were production issues galore. The number of potential problems mentioned at this meeting were 300, as in there were 300 different things that could fuck up and go wrong during a job. And at this meeting we were trying to figure out how to get around it. Taken as a whole, the 300 issues were an overwhelming variable, so Margaret asked us one question: How do you eat an elephant?

Now, asking this question of a bunch of mostly literal-minded people pretty much just led to confusion and general mockery, and in fact that question was widely mocked for months to come. I knew what she meant, even if I didn't have the exact answer to said question. "With a lot of ketchup?" No.

The answer is: one bite at a time.

See, it does make sense. I've held onto that small zen type thing all this time later, because sometimes the book gets overwhelming with it's large cast of characters and multiple running subplots, and sometimes I don't know how the hell I'm going to pull the damn thing off and/or pull it all together. This is what had mostly been fucking me up on that one scene for the last week, too. I know what it has to do in the overall picture, but the ability to get it there seemed beyond me.

So I started eating the elephant. Usually when I get stuck it's for that reason. Usually how I get around that problem is to stop, take the chapter scene by scene, or the scene paragraph by paragraph, or even the paragraph sentence by sentence. Don't worry about the whole thing right now. Just work on this paragraph. Then the next one. An illustration of this can be found in Friends during the episode where Chandler and Monica get married, and Chandler freaks out, and Ross gets him through it by helping him eat the elephant.

Today I took several big bites of the elephant. I stuck to the plan. I was up early, was out of here well on time, got an ice coffee (extra cream, extra sugar) from Dunkins, had a ciggie or two, listened to the Morning Buzz, and got myself to Borders before they opened. Then when they opened I went in, got a corner table near the window, and set up shop. I brought along a couple of my other projects, too, because I knew I'd need some warm-up time, especially starting that early in the day. I worked on my name database project. I did some work on my continuing Ebert project. I wasted some time wandering through the store. Then I got to work.

There's a lot to this one scene, so I stopped and figured out what I had to hit first, and I worked through that. And so on. Most of it was ok, and just needed some tightening of the screws and a tune-up. Some of it was totally wrong. As an example of how wrongheaded I was in my earlier handling of the scene, I had a long paragraph talking about a conversation Kelly and Alexis have about Gwen *instead* of actually playing out the conversation. So I fixed that. The scene is working pretty well, and during the writing I got myself into that wonderful groove where this scene that I've been dreading was actually fun to work on. Awesome. I did a lot of work today. I left there happy and satisfied.

Tomorrow I eat more of the elephant.

*****

I've been renting some movies lately. For the long weekend I brought home No Country For Old Men, Enchanted, Across the Universe, and Michael Moore Hates America. Of all those the one I was most interested, even excited, to watch was Enchanted. I'm not sure what that says about me (*cough*homo*cough*), but I don't care. Amy Adams is great in everything I see her in and the movie had a fun premise. I watched it this afternoon and it was frikking great. I'm a big softie for a sweet romance, and the waltz scene even made me mist up a little. Cripes, I need to find a girlfriend. I'm wasting all this good sensitivity stuff here by myself.

Once upon a time, I probably wouldn't have touched something like Enchanted unless talked into it by some significant other or another, but nowadays I'm open to all kinds of things like this. For instance, I've watched more shows on the Disney Channel than I care to admit. (For all the Hannah Montana hoopla, her show would be nothing without second banana Emily Osmet) I own both Aly & AJ cd's, both are in fairly heavy rotation, and their song "Chemicals React" is one of my favorite songs of the last several years. Possibly only Evanescence, Kittie, Paramore, Flyleaf, and the Dixie Chicks are at that same level as far as modern recording acts go. Yes, and they all have female singers. I don't know why that is, but it is.

Well, maybe I know some of the why ... if you'll indulge me yet again. I think, perhaps, a little part of a certain little someone has stayed with me and is influencing me in this regard.

Anyway, that's what I think.

*****
Today when I returned Enchanted I stopped and picked up this movie called Running With Scissors. I've been told by someone smart and pretty that I should really see it.

And so I shall.